It’s adequate enough to hate John Mayer just for his lack of artistic uniqueness, absence of talent and painfully derivative songs. I remember exactly 10 years ago when the tedious droning of “Your Body is a Wonderland” came on the radio and I shuddered, changing the station away from the cotton candy melody and repetitive, good Lord, repetitive lyrics. All of his songs are like that—gooey and full of blah blah blah sentiments. If Mayer hadn’t made it as a singer he could’ve made a nice living as greeting card writer for Hallmark.
When the infamous Playboy article came out in 2010, I felt the requisite repulsion at Mayer’s thinly veiled arrogance—it was sort of like seeing a Beauty Pageant contestant backstage and watching her strut and twirl in front of a three-way mirror. I also felt a certain sense of justification and smugness. I felt like say, “You see, world? I was right. He is a world class prick.” And that can be a very satisfying feeling. Allow me to quote some of the more odious trinkets that abounded his interview.
“I hate being the heartbreaker”
If he hated being the heartbreaker he wouldn’t refer to himself as a heartbreaker, as in contemporary American society, a heartbreaker is a compliment of such (“he’s so cute, he’s such a heartbreaker). And if we examine the technical aspect of the situation, he’s most likely referring to himself as a “heartbreaker” because he shags a lot of chicks and won’t commit to any of them, because there are so many more chicks to be shagged. So in saying that he hates being a “heartbreaker,” what he’s really saying is that he hates shagging so many chicks, which I think we can all agree is all-American-BS.
Trinket number two: calling Jessica Simpson “sexual napalm” was so incredibly tacky; the only way for him to top that absence of class would be to leak a sex tape of them during the Thanksgiving Day parade.
Trinket number three (and this deserves a full quote):
“Here’s what I really want to do at 32: f@ck a girl and then, as she’s sleeping in bed, make breakfast for her. So she’s like, ‘What? You gave me five orgasms last night, and you’re making me a spinach omelet? You are the shit!’”
Now this is hilarious. This is something we should all get printed on a t-shirt with a big “oh, honey, please” on the back. I’m willing to bet my left ovary, my dog Clover’s life and this laptop computer, that John Mayer is hung like an Asian second grader. If he has to imply during an interview that he gives women five orgasms during one romp in the sack, this man is flailing wildly to compensate for so, so much. And the fact that he adds the bit about the eggs is so noxious. It’s like he’s desperate to convince us that he’s this Renaissance man. Wow, tie this guy down and you’ve hit the jackpot.
Who could forget when Jennifer Aniston was dating him? I mean, I thought this woman had friends? I thought she was besties with Courtney Cox; don’t any of her friends have brains? Couldn’t anyone warn her? I mean, if I was her friend, I would’ve put my foot down and been like, “there’s no way you’re going out with that man-skank. Not only is this ‘relationship’ going to have an expiration date that he explicitly determines, but you’ll probably end up with gonorrhea.” I’m completely serious. Just picture all the hot tub sex Mayer has had with anything with bleach blonde hair and who he feels he had a “connection” with.
One of the bottoms lines here is that John Mayer reminds me of this wayward playwright I dated in my youth. He has the smirk and the hair and the rational of Alice’s Mad Hatter on absinthe. As quoted from the playboy interview:
“I’ve never been a bad boy. I may have taken someone through the wringer psychologically, but I’ve never been sinister.”
John, being psychological nightmare for some girl, IS sinister. Having some girl check her cell phone every seventeen minutes to see if you’ve called or texted is akin to Japanese water torture. Saying things like, “Your eyes are like a beach in Oregon” and then refusing to commit is something that titillates Hannibal Lector. And okay, John Mayer may not have said that to anyone, and perhaps I’m just drawing upon my own sordid dating mistakes of the past, but still relevance prevails. No matter how raspy your voice and how many flowery metaphors you make, oh pardon me, brilliant metaphors, comparing women’s bodies to fictional places, you’re still a bus station jerk if you say things, like say, in regards to Jennifer Aniston, “In some ways I wish I could be with her. But I can’t change the fact that I need to be 32.”
Mayer’s acting like 32 is the new 22. It’s not. 32 is when men in most of the country, like Wisconsin and Alaska, are married and have had at least one kid. 32 does not symbolize the epic of bachelor freedom and va-va-voom. If say, Mayer was in college, rolling over chicks in the old frat house, I would understand, but I think he’s stretching this Peter Pan complex justification a bit too far.
All in all, remember this: I predict Miley Cyrus will be his next lay.
